


In some special ways their story will always be the same

by mols



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Banter, Gen, M/M, Medic Lewis Nixon, Pre-Slash, Role Reversal, bandofbrothersweek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-30 08:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14492601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mols/pseuds/mols
Summary: Lewis Nixon is Easy's Medic for reasons he doesn't even understand but still does his job as properly.





	In some special ways their story will always be the same

     How he gets to make it work, nobody really knows, but Lewis Nixon is an excellent, very dedicated medic and nobody can say otherwise; not without malice - and truly, here Lew doesn't receive as much antagonism as he would think he would (that he normally did, as a matter of “reciprocation” for being unable to shut up when he should - at least as a way to keep himself away from controversy or) because he had his own flagrant flaws that could just as easily lead others to judge him as simply capricious and heedless. But as far as Lew’s concerned, and gotten from the men’s posture around him: no tongue acts as sharp and poisonous as a rusty bayonet could, against him (and he knows how it feels when it does to recognize it anywhere, he grew up witnessing enough of this kind of tongue to know).

     A lot different from his prior premises (the ones anteriorly Camp Toccoa and Easy), though, most men in Easy are a lot more humble in what they expect from him, what they simply ask from him, and Nix delivers it without expecting or waiting for praise, since the beginning he had learn to do so. He was trained for that and since then he’s been always ready to patch the men up and let them go for another round at each turn of that damned war. Their love and gratitude in having their ol’ well known Doc around - sometimes a bit comically grumpy, by the addiction of an unusual thick dark beard and the aversion to mornings by the time they moved to the cold forests of Ardennes - is utterly genuine, and no for lack of reasons; even before they would put their boots in Europe.

     It's true the situation isn't the best one anymore and the drinking is even more a constant in Nix’s life at this point, but he still looks a lot less tipsy (or dead) than most men in the Ardennes Forest for all that mattered. It would be more of a problem if he was unable to react to it, wouldn’t it? He still reacts to the injured men and the rest of them properly, he doesn’t cut his men further when they have worse bloody injuries or lay down wrong medicines on their broke skin. So he really doesn’t think there’s much to complain about - which really could honor the men who had lost everything, even their own lives. He’s still alive and although the cold is hell, he does have all his members attached to his torso, thank you.

The cold, of course, brings its special matters that they need to learn to live with to survive another day and then another night after. One of the the men’s main problems is that most of them have difficulties to sleep an entire night long, for all the reasons one could think of - the cold, the lack of rations, the shell fire, and Nix isn’t all that different from the others.

     He normally still sleeps all he can - when he does, but as he has to Nix’s always ready to jump off his long dreamed sleepiness to cold, bitter reality - only - for the sake of the men. His body normally jerks off the foxhole, just letting it go with the wind as he gets up; he then hears the first shells and feels like getting deaf for a second far too long, and the next moment he seems out of consciousness and then, finally, at the third second he runs, his body waking up in a joint with the realization of (his) reality.

     He also makes his rounds as he’s supposed to but when it’s all calm and he feels his body going completely numb, he can’t help falling into his foxhole, exhausted for the time being, for the cold and for all the shouts and runs he had been doing the last few hours. He fidgets with his medic bag for a second and then gives up onto it to catch his breath, throwing his head back and then he comes back to work, his head coming back to earth too fast to not give him dizziness, to just find a few less ampoules of morphine between his stiff, blue fingers.

     Lewis Nixon has never liked to run, not the kind of runs he had to do under the orders of others - nor in school, college or by the orders of Sobel. Now, he’s here, running as a crazy man or a ghost, as his body always seems to come and go like a radio signal, blooding spreading and then stucking and hiding in the sensible parts of his body, as in a main feature of his profession. How did he turn up here, he asks himself many times, but he’s never been really sure of the answer. He has been lost since a long time ago to know the reasons why he does most the things he does.

He looks around, sighing heavily. There’s no much Vat to heat his veins or his soul. It has been months since he last saw the bright sun warming his pale skin, so pale it could look blue if he were any similar to Captain Dick Winters, their Intelligence, or Major Speirs.

It shouldn’t be a surprise - and it was, a very big and warm one - when Dick popped up from the fog and crouched on the edge of his foxhole.

“Are you good, Lewis?”

Nix shrugs, after shivering deeply, spreading blood all across his torso. It’s better that way…if his lungs weren't being filled with icy oxygen mixed with reliant gunpowder.

“There’s no provision until next week,” Dick informs, not looking at Lew, actually to the horizon in front of them as if resting to take a breath from a long run.

“Really?” Nix snarks and Dick chuckles, shivering more than Nix has done before. Dick Winters looks so much more vulnerable than him or the other guys, besides one or two really pale and thin pals. “I think you need a bit of heat, Cap.”

‘You think?’, Dick’s ghost of a smile seems to say, looking at Lew. They both have always had a really good relationship, full of teasing when they met along the line.

“You know, Sir, it will be christmas in some days.”

Dick looks back at him, shaking. He nods in acknowledge, although he seems to not have been aware before Nix has mentioned it to him.

“You know what?” He digs his gloved hands inside his bag and digs from there a chocolate bar from a friend he met in the village, Eugene. He offers it to Dick. “Merry Christmas, Dick.”

Dick’s eyes almost go completely wide as he sees the food, probably as starving as any other man in the line, but he shakes his head as well as his hand.

“I can't accept that, Lew,” Dick murmurs weakly, “Give a bit to the men if you fancy share.”

Lew frowns:

“I fancy share it with you.”

Dick raises an eyebrow, surprised. He was expecting this reaction, it’s obvious from the way his face features expand across his face.

‘Why’ is probably on the man's tongue, so Nix explains:

“Because you’re a too good to be true Captain, Sir.” He has a supposedly lighthearted smile on his lips.

Dick frowns, not biting it.

“Come on, Dick,” he pouts a little. “If you eat a bit, I will not drink tonight. I promise,” Nix makes a cross over his chest, quite fakely solemn and, very dramatic.

Dick almost smiles. Dick probably thinks he didn’t see it, but Lew could catch Dick’s little mouth twisting when he wanted to smile but didn’t want people to see it.

“You don’t have anything to drink, Lewis,” Dick says, almost sorry for his friend.

“Details,” Nix grunts, and then points out to Dick “plus, how would you know that?”

“And you were gonna let your men in pain, Lew?” Then, Dick smiles affectionately to him what makes Nix’s stomach flutter unnaturally.

Nix complains anyway, because he misses the alcohol burning his insides so nicely, making him feel a little less dead and little less out of hell which was this frozen Forest:

“I should, no one thanked me for the outrageous use of my precious Vat.”

     In other occasions, Lewis could be a lot less selfless, but too many almost dead boys had ended up onto his already blood-soaked hands and lap for him to not fall into pity those poor, too young boys. Plus, the illusion that Vat offered, in a place like this, doesn’t last long, nor does the bottle. It’s too much of saving for a Lewis Nixon who used to live throwing money through the window to the worms in the garden as much as a rebellion he could think when he was 10.

Dick chuckles and walks to him.

“Gimme space.”

Nix smirks, pleased. He likes to have Dick’s presence beside him, his body heat too - he wasn’t someone to lie to himself about the nature of his own being.

“If chocolate won’t lure you, I bet that warm body and my selflessness did,” Nix announces, because he knows Dick is more human and more good than he could help it.

“Gimme the chocolate, Lew.”

Lew chuckles, the laughter rasping his throat like the soft scratching his mouth sky seems to urge from him sometimes. It’s good. It's all he needs.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It was supposed to be for a bob week on tumblr but it took me ages for editing it (and I don't even know if the editing is good enough). I hope you'll liked it <3 comments, kudos and bookmarks are always welcome <3


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